


Loose Cannons

by anonymous_moose



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Action, Alternate Universe, Gen, Good Cop Bad Cop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-07
Updated: 2014-05-13
Packaged: 2017-12-07 18:21:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 13,884
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/751585
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anonymous_moose/pseuds/anonymous_moose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shepard is one of the best bounty hunters in the Terminus Systems, but when a job that's too good to pass up pulls her to the law-abiding Citadel, she ends up in the sights of a hot-headed cop who always gets results.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. On the Job

"What can I get you?" the young woman asks from behind the bar, raising her voice to be heard over the music.

"Nothing," she answers, then adds casually, "but I've got something for you."

The bartender blinks, and fear crosses her eyes. Not for long, to her credit. Shepard sees her reach for something beneath the bar. Shepard didn't want to hurt her. Besides her natural empathy for a young woman in a dangerous situation that's not at all in her control, it would absolutely ruin the entrance she had planned.

"Just some advice," she says quickly and quietly. "Things are about to get real ugly down here. I'd leave now, if I were you. Maybe call your C-Sec contact and tell him Fist just went out of business."

"What?"

Shepard grins and bows her head a little, tapping a finger to scar on her temple. A little souvenir from the first time she'd tangled with Wrex. She had hated it at first, an ever-present reminder of stupidity and bravado that nearly got her killed. But these days? She thinks it gives her character.

"I look like this is my first rodeo?"

"How-"

"Trade secret." She reaches to her right and takes a glass from a human napping on the bar next to her. She throws it back and nearly blanches  _(who the fuck drinks peach schnapps?)_  then slams it back down.

"Just get moving, kid." She turns on that famous Shepard glare. "Now."

The bartender swallows, then starts heading for the door. She takes whatever was under the bar with her, tucking it into the sleeve of her dress with a subtlety that Shepard was almost impressed by.

She'll be alright, that kid. Shepard's glad she'd taken the time to tell her to get lost - she'd waffled a bit on it, since she could call the cops a little early, but her better nature won out once again. She sighs lightly and makes for the door to the VIP lounge near the back, thinking that her rep will take a serious hit if that gets out.

There are two big krogan guards, because of course there are. Even on the Citadel, a krogan can always find work as a big slab of meat to stand next to a door.

"Keep your distance, human," the one on the right says.

"This Fist's place?" she asks, already knowing the answer.

"Who wants to know?"

Shepard smiles beautifically. "Oh, we're old friends."

"Fist has a lot of 'old friends.' Who are you?"

The smile disappears in an instant. She comfortably switches into the second act of this old play. "You know how he was able to afford this place? Me. You know how he got the money he pays you with? Me. You know who he would want to know is here? Me. Now get your fat ass going and tell him."

The guard almost looks like he wants to take a shot at her. A very krogan sign of respect. He considers her story. "What's your name?"

"Tell him it's Shepard."

The krogan hesitates, then turns around and keys open the door with his omni-tool. A glance through before it closes confirms that it's exactly the place Fist would be - a tacky lounge area with some asari strippers and a high stakes collection of table games. Just another bunch of small-time players who think they're big. The krogan stomps through to go find his boss.

Shepard stands there for a minute, waiting for the krogan to get wherever he's going. Then she jerks her head up at the other guard and smiles, trying for friendly.

The second krogan glares at her. He's young, she can tell. No scars, and not nearly as much raw confidence in his eyes as Wrex. She spends an idle moment wondering where the old bastard is right now, whether he's still alive, and if he is, whether or not he's bitter that she got the best of him in their last little altercation.

Probably not. Wrex was like that - he only held grudges against people he didn't respect. Next time they ran into each other, maybe she'd act a little smug about it, try and wind him up. See how he'd react.

"What're you looking at?" the young krogan barks.

She shakes her head, brings herself back into the moment. Work to do, after all. She glances down at her watch, an old, archaic piece of tech and the only jewelry she ever wore. It's been long enough. The second krogan is as far away as he's gonna get from the front door.

Shepard looks up at the confused krogan, smiles again, then squints at his armor. "You've got something right here," she says as she brushes at the top of her shoulder.

He blinks at her, then slowly turns his head and looks down at his pauldron. Finding nothing, he looks up.

Shepard has her compact snub-nose shotgun out and half an inch from his face, too close for his shields to help. She grins and fires. The concussive round slams into his face and his back shoots towards the ground at a frightening speed.

Something she'd learned from Wrex, maybe the most important thing she'd ever learned - take a krogan out of the fight as soon as possible, or you're in for a world of hurt.

"Now you've got something right here," she says, gesturing vaguely at her face.

The bar crowd in Chora's Den, used to the occasional gunfight, starts making for the doors as she reaches down and grabs the krogan's omni-tool. She uses it to key open the door he was guarding, then charges into the lounge hall, firing live rounds into the air.

"Last call!" she shouts. "Everyone to the bar, it's last call!"

This crowd, unused to gunfights, all freak and start running past her. Shepard is already moving through the crowd. The handful of guards in here make for a brief, entertaining diversion, but they don't matter. She even leaves a couple conscious just because she's so damn nice.

There are more guards past the VIP lounge in the proper 'employees only' section of the club. Human and krogan, mostly, with a few salarians thrown in for good measure, but no asari and no biotics. That's good. Shepard hates asari almost as much as she hates biotics. No fun to fight whatsoever.

Her overclocked personal shield generator deflects most of the rounds that get fired her way, with her camoflaged armor (hidden under a rough and tumble jacket and trousers) taking the rest of the shots. That always catches her attackers off guard, when she doesn't drop from a round in the heart. The look on their faces is worth the trouble of hiding it, and dulls the stabbing pain she receives every time a lucky shot snakes through.

Shepard grins fiercely as she works. Always moving, always ducking and bobbing and weaving from cover to cover. She's always preferred it that way - sitting behind cover for five minutes exchanging shots with some no-name thugs just because she was afraid of a little risk? What fun was that?

Most of Fist's boys didn't have high-end equipment. The tungsten buckshot from her shotgun punches right through most of their shields in the first shot, and a quickly loaded concussive round proves their armor is just as weak. Not even the most basic of kinetic dampeners. Prep work paying off again - the info she'd gathered said that Fist was a cheap bastard when it came to anyone but himself and his high-rollers.

And that's proven true when she arrives at Fist's private office. Nice, big windows looking out on one of the Citadel wards, a big desk, plush looking sofas and chairs, and a whole set of security mechs and retractable turrets in the walls.

"Fist!" she shouts over the din of the automated fire coming her way. "I got something for ya!"

"Go to hell!" he shouts back.

"Maybe later!" Shepard pulls out her trump card and throws it in the center of the room. It rolls a bit, settles, blinks, then emits a high-pitched whine that quickly extends beyond human hearing. The mechs and turrets freeze and stop firing.

Fist looks around him, stunned. "What? What did you do?"

"A little gift from a quarian friend of mine. You like it?" Shepard is smiling as she steps into his office, shotgun leveled at him. "Drop the gun. You're worth more alive."

He may have been a piece of human garbage, but Fist wasn't a complete idiot. He dropped his pistol (heavily modded, custom grip, probably cost a fortune and he hadn't even bothered to put up a fight with it) and raised his hands. "Who sent you?" he asks.

Shepard settles in front of him, shotgun held comfortably at hip level. "You'll find out soon enough. Suffice it to say in your pathetic little 'rise to power' you fucked over the wrong people. They're willing to pay a hefty sum for you."

"How hefty?" he asks quickly. "I'll double it."

"If you could, I'd be very surprised," Shepard says with a smirk. "This might be the biggest credit-to-effort ratio of any job I've ever pulled. You really should have invested in your people more, Fist. Wouldn't have helped much, but it might have slowed me down long enough for you to at least make it to the street before I plugged you in the-"

Fist's eyes drifted low as she was speaking, then he made a move to grab her gun. He quickly learns that just because she looks relaxed doesn't mean she isn't ready, and Shepard reconsiders her previous position - Fist is, in fact, a complete idiot.

"Okay, okay!" he wheezes, cowering on the floor, one hand up and the other on his bruised ribs. "Just... not the face!"

Shepard glares at him. "You keep that up, I'll decide the credits  _aren't_  worth the effort. I mean Christ, have a little respect. I got this far, haven't I earned a little cooperation?"

Fist is too busy gasping for breath to answer. She hears a gun unholster behind her. Shepard spins and moves, putting Fist to her periphery and facing her new attacker.

"C-Sec!" the turian shouts unnecessarily. His uniform was speaking louder than he ever could. "Drop the gun!"

"Calm down," she says as he advances slowly, his pistol level with the visor across one of his eyes. "I'm a bounty hunter. I've got a license."

"Even if you did," he says cooly, "which I doubt, since I tend to keep track of those on my beat, I can book you on reckless endangerment-"

"What?" she shouts indignantly. All the trouble she'd gone to, buying all those concussive rounds just for this job, and this was the thanks she got?

"-possession of illegally modified firearms, and resisting arrest if you don't drop that gun," he finishes, ignoring her interruption.

Shepard bites the inside of her cheek and considers her options. She had been banking on him having to call it in and check her license, giving her an opening to get close enough and disarm him, grab Fist, and book it, but that was out. He was also well-equipped, unlike Fist's thugs, and he was keeping the proper distance from her - her buckshot wouldn't be enough to break his shields at this range, and his pistol looked like a slightly modded Phalanx. He could drop her with three shots to her head, and given the visor over one eye and his stance, she didn't doubt his ability to land every one. A concussive round might stumble him, but not for long enough to do anything.

And even if she did manage to take him out, what then? There'd be a warrant out for her in a matter of minutes, for a lot worse than just unlicensed work and possession of a few mods, and she wouldn't have enough time to make it to her ship and undock. And if she managed  _that,_  the Citadel would be off-limits to her unless she called in a couple very serious favors she was owed, and neither of them was a sure thing.

Shepard is fucked. There's only one way out of this that got her anything. It was dirty, and risky, and she might feel a little bad about it later, but not for very long.

"Alright," she says, lowering her gun slightly, "I give up. You got me."

The C-Sec officer untenses almost invisibly, not enough to give her any advantage, but enough to let her know she has an opening to do what needs to be done.

Shepard shifts just a little to get behind Fist, who had slowly made his way to his feet and was keeping his hands up and empty while the two people who still had guns settled their dispute.

"But what about him?"

She kicks Fist's modded pistol over to his feet. He looks down at it, up at her, then at the turian officer, who is now glancing back and forth between the two of them.

Come on Fist, she thinks. Be all the stupid you can be.

True to form, he goes for it. It's hard to know what he was going to do with it, though, because Fist's head explodes before he's even halfway up, spraying blood and brain matter all over his expensive sofa. His body crumples. The turian curses loudly and takes a shot at Shepard. Her shields deflect it right in front of her face (a good shot) before Shepard throws her gun to the ground and sticks her hands behind her head.

The turian freezes, uncertain as she steps down to her knees. Shepard shrugs as best she can.

"Half the money is better than none."


	2. Meet-Cute

There's a stunned silence for a moment, and Shepard realizes they must make quite a scene. She with her heavy jacket and pants, kneeling with her hands behind her head. The turian in C-Sec blue, gun drawn and ready to fire. Fist, missing most of his skull, leaving a large-ish stain on his plush purple carpeting.

The turian officer in the visor advances on her quickly and carefully, shifting behind her. Then he kicks her between the shoulder blades and she falls face first onto the floor.

"The hell," she curses as he presses a knee into her back. "I gave up, you know. This is police brutality."

"Right," the turian drawls, pulling her hands behind her and cuffing them with fancy magnetic locks. "You can lodge a formal complaint when we get to headquarters."

"Maybe I will!" Shepard asserts, before mumbling, "Dick."

She feels his hands on her neck, long fingers, no gloves. They stroke along her neck, briefly delve up into her hair, then into the collar of her jacket and along her shoulders and arms. Even moving down her sides and into the small of her back.

"Getting fresh with a prisoner?" she asks, trying her best to look him in the eye. "This how you get through the day?"

He's looking at her coolly, but intently. Not in the eye, but focusing on his work. His hands move with purpose, not shyly, dragging across her sides, her thighs, and down her legs.

"Don't flatter yourself," he says simply. "Just checking for booby traps."

Shepard cocks an eyebrow. "Isn't it standard procedure to ask if I've got any, first?"

"Never really understood that," he says idly, drawing his hands beneath the back of her jacket. "Not like you'd tell me if you did."

"Well, quite frankly, I'm insulted." With significant effort, Shepard turns her head pointedly in the opposite direction and ends up staring at the still-intact bottom half of Fist's face. She rolls her eyes and then closes them. "I do your job for you, turn myself in, and then I get treated like a dangerous suspect? Whatever happened to gratitu–"

She opens her eyes to find a turian hand in front of her face. It's holding the pocket-stunner she keeps in the lining of her sleeve, rigged to go off if anyone touches it.

"Huh. How'd that get there."

His hand disappears and then she's being yanked to her feet. Not delicately.

"Watch it, bareface," she says, shrugging her shoulders in an attempt to right her jacket.

"Just start walking," he says. "Unless you'd rather I carried you."

"Oh, you'd like that, wouldn't you?" Shepard retorts as he pushes her forward.

She glances back and sees his gun is still out. Taking no chances. Smart, she thinks. Smarter than most. Not that she really intends to make any moves, but if there's anything she's learned, it's to always be mindful of changing circumstances. Especially if those circumstances have a gun.

They make their way out of Chora's Den. It's a mess. Tables overturned, chits and chips of various denominations spilled everywhere. Bodies are strewn throughout the club, all alive but in varying states of pain or consciousness. The krogan she'd laid out with a point blank concussive round earlier is sitting against the wall by the door while his partner squats in front of him and keeps asking him what day it is and how many fingers he's holding up. He gives her a death glare when they pass, and she gives him a smile in return.

"You're welcome, by the way," she says as they emerge from the club. There's a crowd of people outside, some from inside, some just gawkers come to see what happened.

"I should be thanking you?" the turian asks dryly. "For what?"

"Doing your job."

He barks out a laugh. "Right. Murdering a man in cold blood–"

"Murder?!" she blurts, jerking her head around to face him.

"–isn't my job."

"He was going for a gun!" Shepard says innocently.

"That you kicked over to him."

"How it got there is beside the point. The point is, I acted in self-defense. Or the defense of another! Both of which are thoroughly within my rights as a sentient being according to Citadel law."

"In defense of who?" he laughs. "Me?"

"Sure!" Shepard says as they arrive at an unmarked skycar parked opposite Chora's. "Who knows which of us he would have taken a shot at first?"

"Pretty sure it would have been you," the turian says, opening the rear door and directing her head down and into the car.

She looks up and gives him a hard, searching look. "You sure about that?"

The turian stares at her a moment, one hand on the raised passenger door. He's hard to read, one eye behind a shaded blue visor, but she sees the amused flare of one mandible and smirks right back.

Then he slams the door in her face.

Shepard slumps in the seat, hands still cuffed uncomfortably behind her back. She could shift them underneath and forward, but her officer wouldn't like that. Even though there's a metal cage and what looks like a mass effect force field between her and the front of the skycar, she's already getting the feeling that he's nothing if not careful.

It's been a while since she's been treated like a real threat. Sure, she's got a rep, and she doesn't exactly look like a shrinking violet, but she's more than used to being underestimated. Now she's being treated like she's dangerous.

Fine by me, Shepard thinks as her arresting officer settles into the pilot's seat. She likes being dangerous.

"You know, I didn't really expect you to show up so fast," she says conversationally, leaning forward. "Figured the girl would run and tell C-Sec, but that's some impressive response time."

The car lifts off, slowly ascending through the many layers of the ward.

"Girl?" the turian asks distractedly, keying at the controls and looking up to make sure they don't collide with another passing car.

"Don't play dumb," Shepard says. "The bartender. She was your contact."

The air outside the skycar blurs like heat wash as they pass through the limit of the artificial atmosphere of the ward and into traffic proper. "Sorry, no."

"What?"

"I just happened to be in the neighborhood. Heard gunshots, saw people running out of Chora's Den." He punches in some coordinates or other and then shifts his attention to the on-board computer, probably linked to the C-Sec database. "It's not uncommon, but it's rarely more than a few drunk krogan or batarians getting into an overzealous disagreement about who's picking up the tab. I didn't expect a war zone."

"Wait," she says, furrowing her brow. "So you were just on the beat? And then—"

"Nope."

Shepard blinks. "What?"

"Not on duty. Like I said, just in the neighborhood."

"Oh," she says loudly, "so you were walking on by, hear gunshots, decide to run on in without calling for any backup and handle the whole thing yourself?"

The turian nods, banking the skycar into a line of traffic. "That's about the size of it," he confirms, and then taps at the screen with one finger. "I was right—you're not licensed."

"Yeah," she sighs, "that's my luck, alright... I get a job too good to pass up, and I run into one of the 'thin blue line' types."

She sees his reflection smile in the glass of the windshield. "What's that human phrase? 'Cry me a river?' "

"And a comedian, too." Shepard braces her feet against the back of the pilot's seat and sighs again. "It keeps getting better."

A voice pipes in through the tinny skycar comm, a combination of letters, numbers, and street and district names. The turian punches in his comm code and says, "Vakarian here. I'll take it."

"Oh god, please," Shepard whines as the skycar banks to switch lanes, "you can't even get me to the goddamn station in a timely fashion? This is the worst arrest I've ever had."

"Are you going to shut up ever, or do I have to gag you?" he asks mildly.

She laughs. "You wouldn't dare."

He turns to look her in the eye, calm and serious. "Try me."

Shepard frowns, but says nothing as he turns around again. She has the distinct feeling he's bluffing... but he also ran into a crime scene, gun drawn, without backup, while off duty. She gets the feeling he's either the best kind of cop, or the worst kind, and until she figures out which one that is, she'll tread lightly.

But if he makes a crack about her looks or starts listening to vorcha dubstep or something, then all bets are off.


	3. Ride Along

They're not in the air more than two minutes this time before the cop—Vakarian—is on the horn again. Shepard rolls her eyes as hard as she can and collapses sideways onto the bench seat in the back of the car.

Three public disturbances, two groups of vandals, a drunk and disorderly, a robbery, and one very publicly indecent krogan. She should have been at the station an hour and a half ago, through processing and on her way to a nice, comfy cell for two to four years of contemplating what she'd do with the massive paycheck she'd just scored. Instead, Vakarian had apparently taken it upon himself to right every wrong in Shalta Ward. Probably in an attempt to bore her to death.

The skycar slows and hovers over another section of the ward, further towards the base of the Citadel. They slowly descend through the artificial atmosphere before touching down in the middle of a small but busy market. Vendors selling every variety of cuisine from every world in the galaxy line the edges, while on the level above numerous shop fronts blare slogans while flashing holo-signs advertise the latest in electronics, apparel, or liquor.

Vakarian kills the engine and opens his door. "Won't be a minute," he says, sparing her a cursory glance. "Don't go anywhere."

Shepard frowns and puts her feet up against her window, crossing her legs. "Wasn't funny the first time, asshole."

"Not to you," Vakarian says dryly before slamming his door shut. He marches down a small thoroughfare in front of the car, gently pushing his way between pedestrians while Shepard stares daggers at his back.

She'd run into bad cops before. Bad, she could handle. Even use, once in a blue moon. Good cops were another thing entirely, but thankfully a hell of a lot rarer. Especially in the kinds of places she usually plies her trade.

Vakarian is the biggest Boy Scout she's ever seen. Or would be, if he hadn't stormed into a fight, gun drawn, without backup. And if he hadn't taken that shot that would have blown her head clean off if not for her overclocked shields.

It doesn't make sense. Either he's a straight-lace, by-the-book son of a bitch, or he isn't. And Vakarian doesn't strike her as someone who does anything halfway.

Hell with it, she thinks. Who cares? Once this long and interminable night is over with, she'll never see Vakarian or hear his smug-ass voice again.

Shepard tears herself from her idle thoughts long enough to notice an asari maiden is standing next to the skycar, staring through the window at her curiously.

She kicks hard at the reinforced glass and the alien jumps back, startled.

"Park your azure someplace else," Shepard barks. "I'm tryin' to relax."

The maiden promptly hurries off. Shepard leans her head back and sighs in exasperation. She'd tried to nap at their last stop, and that had been totally unsuccessful. Didn't look like it was going to work any better this time.

She sits up carefully, maneuvering her cuffed hands behind her back, and rolls her shoulders to work out the kinks. That's when she sees her cop down the street. There's a small crowd around him, a few sticking their heads out of nearby windows. He's got his arms crossed and some other turian with silvery plates and poor dress sense is shouting at him. Flailing his arms around.

Probably yet another drunk and disorderly, Shepard thinks bitterly. Until the man tries to reach around Vakarian to grab at... someone? A woman?

Vakarian lays him out in half a second, too fast and too far away for her to catch exactly how. Then he climbs on top of the poor bastard and yanks on his cowl. Even from this distance, Shepard can tell that he wants to break the guy in half, but instead, he's definitely giving him an earful. When he shoves him back to the ground, the other turian crawls away as fast as he can.

Another skycar descends, landing next to Vakarian's, and a single human patrolman steps out and heads down the thoroughfare. Vakarian starts heading back, and laughs at something the human says as he passes him.

He opens the door and settles back into the pilot's seat. "Miss me?" he asks.

"What was that about?" Shepard asks, knowing the answer.

"Domestic dispute," he says simply, starting up the engine. "Second time there's been a call here. Won't be a third."

"Oh yeah? What did you tell him?"

"I told him I'd be very upset if there was."

"Ahh," Shepard says knowingly, settling back in her seat. "I was wrong earlier. This is how you get through the day."

Vakarian's reflection in the windshield gives her a glare. "This is how I do my job."

"Uh-huh," she says skeptically. "Then you must love what you do."

"I wasn't kidding about the gag, you know."

"And I wasn't kidding when I said this was the worst arrest I've ever had," she retorted. "A ride with a cop who gets off on his authority is not my idea of a wonderful evening."

"Just because I give a damn doesn't mean—" He stops, frowning and shaking his head as they rise and bank into traffic. "I don't know why I'm even talking to you. You don't care about anyone but yourself."

"Oh really?" Shepard asks, barking out a humorless laugh. "When'd you figure that out?"

"Oh, I don't know," he says, taking up her sarcastic tone, "maybe when you started shooting up a crowded bar to get yourself paid."

She leans back and rolls her eyes. "Oh my god, they were concussive rounds."

"Beside the point!"

"Like hell!" Shepard leans forward, nose almost to the cage. "I stocked up on those special before I came here! I wasn't about to kill anyone!"

"And what about stray rounds? Ricochets? You can't account for those!"

"And you can?!"

He opens his mouth, then closes it. Shepard grins, relishing in her victory as he fumes for a moment.

"Changing the subject," Vakarian says, still angry, but calmer. "You only care about the money."

"How would you know?"

"You're a bounty hunter."

She laughs. "No prejudice here, I see."

Vakarian opens his mouth but she cuts him off.

"I do what I do, some low-life son of a bitch gets what's coming to them, and I get paid. You're telling me you don't get a salary?"

"That's different."

"Is it?" Shepard leans back, hands bunching up behind her. "You ever make a mistake? Shoot the wrong guy? Let one get away?"

He stares straight ahead and says nothing, hands gently maneuvering the controls.

"I'll take that as a 'yes'," she says. "Well, join the club. There's jackets."

Vakarian's reflection frowns, and his browplates furrow. Shepard sticks her feet up against the cage and crosses them again.

"Don't presume you're the only sentient being in the galaxy who gives a shit," she says seriously. "And don't presume that you know the first god damn thing about me."

The silence after that is tense. Vakarian opens his mouth again, but he's interrupted by another tinny voice on the comm. This one is more abrupt and less bored.

"Three-two-one-niner, sector eighty five, Shalta Ward, shots fired, repeat, three-two-one-niner—"

"Vakarian here," he says, keying the comm. "I'm on my way. Less than two klicks, ETA one minute. Anyone else close?"

"Negative," the voice says. "Nearest unoccupied is across the station, Zakera Ward. Mobilizing tactical unit, but–"

"Yeah, I know," he says. Then he releases the comm and curses under his breath. "They take their sweet time."

The skycar accelerates hard, and Shepard takes her feet off the back of Vakarian's seat. She'd complain again about the detour, but whatever was happening sounded like it might be serious.

Or, at the very least, interesting.


	4. Thin Blue Line

Garrus Vakarian is having a hell of a night off.

One minute he's heading to Flux to unwind—not his idea, but he's gotten enough comments that he should "put down the badge for five minutes"—and the next he's hearing screams. He could have called for backup, probably should have, but it was Chora's Den. By the time anyone felt like sending an on-duty uniform into that place, whatever was happening would have happened already.

So he drew his pistol and charged in. Alone against the world. Same as it always was.

And after wading through a strangely bloodless war zone, still conscious bodies moaning on the ground, he found not the typical gangland hit squad he expected, but a single woman. A human woman, at that.

Garrus isn't racist. Or sexist, for that matter. But there had been a number of krogan among Fist's bodyguards, and whatever else humans were, a match for a number of armed, adolescent krogan in close quarters wasn't one of them.

Or so he'd thought. The full-bodied smile she'd given two of them on the way out said otherwise. But considering how she'd blown Fist away as casually as one would swat a bug, maybe he shouldn't have been surprised.

Now she's cuffed in the back of his car, whining about how long it's taking to get arrested, while he's answering any close calls that come through. It's not like he could have kept his radio off in good conscience—if he was bringing in a perp, that meant he was on duty. And Vakarians didn't do anything halfway.

The skycar passes through the artificial atmosphere above one of the ward arms for what even Garrus hopes is the final time for the night. The human in the back hasn't spoken in a while, thank the spirits, but that doesn't mean she hasn't been pouting and sighing like a petulant child.

He sets down a few dozen yards up the street from the single patrol car outside the address he's been given. Its lights are flashing, and the two turians behind it have weapons drawn. Another car, unmarked, looks like it landed rough near the front door of a small market. The officers had apparently taken the time to at least set up a perimeter—a thin strip of holograph imploring passer-by "DO NOT CROSS" stretches across the width of the street on both sides. A small crowd has gathered, but at least seem content to gawk from a safe distance.

"Is this what I think it is?" the human asks behind him.

Garrus' mandibles twitch into a frown as he regards the scene. "Three two one niner. Shots fired, hostages taken."

"Hostages?"

"More than one, anyw—"

"Then this could go on all night!"

He spins to glare at her. She's leaning forward, eyes wide and imploring.

"Look, you said you're not on duty, and I am dying on these goddamn bench seats. Have you people even heard of cushions?"

"'You people?' "

"How about you drop me off and then come back to do your obsessive compulsive civic duty? It wouldn't take you more than a few minutes."

She's ready to keep bargaining, but Garrus raises his hand, one finger pointing up, and she quiets.

"I've got a better idea," he says.

Then he opens his door, steps out, and slams it shut.

"How about you just let me out here and I fucking walk the rest of the way?" she shouts through the skycar's closed window.

"Keep asking and I'll do it mid-flight," he retorts, rapping gently against the glass before walking away. She shouts something about his parentage, but he hums to tune her out until he's well out of earshot.

The two turians behind the patrol car look relieved to see him as he passes through the holographic tape.

"What's the situation?" he asks.

"Four, maybe five batarians," the taller, older one says. "We were flying behind them when the scanner said the skycar wasn't ID tagged. We hit the siren, they hit the throttle, and we chased them down here."

"They're all inside?"

"Far as we know," the other turian says, tugging at the collar of his uniform. "Central says they're already wanted for trying to smuggle illegal firearms through customs earlier today."

"When did you call for backup?"

"A full three minutes ago," the older one grumbles. "I told them they're surrounded, and to turn themselves in, but it's just the two of us. We can't cover all the exits. If they called our bluff, they might not even be in there anymore."

Garrus curses quietly, sizing up the storefront. The windows have been shaded and the cages dropped. This isn't a great neighborhood, and the store did have some basic security measures.

"When's tactical going to get here?" the younger one asks.

After a moment's consideration, Garrus draws and unfolds his pistol. The barrel clicks into place. "Not soon enough."

The old one looks at him like he's crazy. "You can't be suggesting we storm the place."

"No," he replies, keying his visor for batarian biometrics. "Just me."

"Are you insane?" the younger one asks, glancing back and forth between Garrus and the door. "We should... we should wait for backup. This is tactical's job."

"They're not here." Garrus weighs the gun in his hands. He finds it comforting. "Stay out front. Splitting up won't do either of you any good. Wait for tactical, and make sure they actually assess the situation before they charge in."

"What, like you?"

"Four to five hostiles with possible hostages and clear escape routes, no backup and no other options?" Garrus smiles. "Yeah, like me."

He moves quickly, breaking from the cover of the skycar and moving up. The front door is the most obvious entry point, and so he avoids it, skirting around to a side exit for deliveries and service personnel. When he decrypts the lock and the door slides open, he crouches and spins inside, checking his corners.

Nothing but an empty storage room. Boxes and cabinets of canned goods both levo and dextro.

The next two rooms are the same, to varying degrees of cleanliness. It's not until he draws up next to a set of double doors leading into the store proper that he hears voices.

"We're screwed," says one, nasal but clearly batarian, "We're screwed, we're so screwed—"

"Shut up, Tobin," barks another. "Ancestor's breath, I can't take any more of your whining."

"What are we waiting for?" asks a third. "We've got weapons. We can fight out way out of here and—"

"And what?" A fourth. "Run through the streets until they gun us down from their skycars?"

"Better than cowering here with a bunch of hostages."

Garrus sighs. Hostages confirmed.

"They're good stock," said the second. "If we can get them back to the ship—"

"You really think they haven't impounded the ship by now?" the fourth asks. "There is no ship. There is no profit. We have to find another way off this station and be thankful we still have our lives."

"There is no way off this station!" Tobin shouts. "There's cameras everywhere, C-Sec everywhere, all the docking bays are guarded! I knew this was a bad idea, we were fools for ever coming here—"

A smack, fist on flesh. Garrus winces sympathetically.

"Enough!" barks one.

"What?" says the second. "I warned him. And his whining wasn't getting us anywhere—"

Quietly and carefully, Garrus pushes the door open just far enough to poke his head through. No sign of the batarians, but he doesn't have a full view of the supermarket from this position. Their arguing continues unabated as he quickly dashes from cover and ducks behind a stand advertising Eez-O's. 

He had to make a move soon. One of them, the fourth one he thought, was starting to take charge of the situation.

Moving smoothly from cover to cover, he eventually finds them by the checkout counters: two still standing, one on his back who must be Tobin, and a third trying to revive him. Looks like machine pistols and shotguns, though one might have a rifle. Nearby, huddled in a corner, is a small group of civilians. Probably those present when they stormed into the place. Several humans, asari, volus... and a child.

Garrus swallows as his mouth goes dry. Stay calm and be rational, he thinks. There's not too many. If he can get the batarians' attention, they could make a break for the front door. It isn't far. There's cashiers among them, they'll have the keys for the locks and cages. He just has to think of a way to approach that doesn't get him killed.

Tobin's head lolls to the side and his four black eyes blink blearily open. Garrus freezes.

He's looking right at him.

And suddenly, all planning goes right out the window.

(possible scene break)

Tobin has barely shouted the word, "Cop!" before Garrus steps out, aims a shot, and puts one round through an eye of the batarian kneeling over him. Protocol says he should have made himself known and demanded they drop their weapons before discharging his own. As he slides into the cover of the next aisle over, he realizes he's going to have to do a lot of paperwork tomorrow.

Rounds explode into the metal shelving and tile floor. He chances a peek and catches some dried pasta shrapnel in his face. All three remaining batarians have their attention on him, not on the hostages.

Three on one. He can work with that.

He blindfires several rounds down the aisle to suppress, then sprints down the length of the store, slipping into the last aisle and racing down to the opposite end. There's still some gunfire, probably at his last position, covering the echoes of his steps, and he rounds the corner directly into Tobin's face.

The batarian yelps—actually yelps—and tries to raise his machine pistol. Garrus catches it in his free hand and presses his Phalanx into the man's neck.

"Don't even think it."

Tobin swallows loudly and releases his gun.

"Drop your weapons," Garrus calls out as the other batarians turn on him.

The two of them look at each other briefly. Then they look back at him.

Tobin's body catches most of the rounds, though one snakes through and catches Garrus in the thigh. He throws down the riddled batarian and slips back into the aisle, checking briefly to make sure his body armor stopped the bullet.

He hears footsteps. One of them is falling back, the other is moving down the next aisle over. Then he starts shooting, bullets spraying from what must be a rifle straight through the metal shelving, splintering boxes of crackers and pulping produce in the refrigeration unit against the wall. The stream of bullets starts moving in a horizontal line heading straight for Garrus.

In a fit of what would later be called 'reckless stupidity' by his superiors, Garrus grabs Tobin's machine pistol and throws it to the other end of the aisle. The bullet stream stops, and while the batarian redirects his fire towards the sound of the clattering pistol, Garrus ignores the pain in his leg and clambers up onto the top of the shelving unit itself.

By the time the man sees him, Garrus has put two rounds in his chest and throat. He catches another round in his back and dives for the ground, landing heavily and knocking the wind out of him, but he rolls onto his back and before his assailant can turn into the aisle to finish him off, his visor has calculated his probable angle of entry. He takes a round smack between all four eyes.

Garrus hauls himself to his feet with a groan. He can't check his back, but since it hurts a lot, he's pretty sure it didn't pierce the armor. Still. Bruised plating will make sleep a lot more difficult for the next week.

He exits the aisle and finds the front of the store deserted. It looks like the hostages had taken the opportunity to escape. Crisis averted, situation resolved. When Garrus gets back to the car, he is turning off his damn radio.

Suddenly, there's a scream.

"Don't move!"

He spins. The child screams again as the last remaining batarian presses a gun against her temple and squeezes her tighter against him.

Four, maybe five, the officers had said.

"Drop it!" the batarian shouts. "Or I drop her!"

He's half-considering taking his shot anyway when there's another, very different scream behind him. His visor's rear-view camera helpfully informs him that one of the hostages has returned.

"No!" the asari shouts. "Please, don't, she's just a girl—"

"Make him drop the gun!"

Garrus quickly throws down his weapon. Reckless, maybe. But not that reckless. Not like this.

"Alright," the batarian says, still agitated. "Alright, now you're going to help me get out of here!"

Garrus opens his mouth, ready to stall for time until tactical arrives, but he freezes. His eyes go wide and his mandibles flare. The batarian spins slightly to face the newcomer as her footsteps echo in the sudden quiet of the supermarket.

The human woman tucks her red hair behind her ear with an entirely unbound hand and gives them both a full-bodied smile.

"I can do that."


	5. Thin Red Line

"—and your whole goddamn family!" Shepard shouts at the turian's back as he walks away from the car. If he heard her, he makes no indication that he did.

She slumps backwards into her seat, wincing as the cuffs behind her back twist. There's no getting out of this, and she's fine with that. She's done time before. But she'd like to actually start doing the time while she's still young.

Fuck it. If she's going to sit in this car all night and day, she might as well be comfortable. With a little stretching and wiggling, she's able to slip her hands underneath and in front of her. She didn't even have to dislocate her arm to do it, which is nice. It's sore for weeks afterward.

Shepard leans back in her seat, enjoying her newfound comfort, such as it is. Glancing out the window, she sees Vakarian talking to a pair of turians crouched behind their patrol car. Their weapons are out and their eyes are fixed on the storefront.

If this really is a hostage situation, she thinks, the whole thing is amateur hour. There's only two cars here and they haven't even covered all the exits. And who takes hostages and hides in a grocery? There's too much exposure, and their security systems are hacked together garbage at best. Not like there are a lot of people looking to steal produce on the Citadel.

Which means whoever is in there is either stupid, or desperate. And Shepard knows from experience that neither of those is fun when there's collateral to worry about.

She laces her fingers together in her lap and sighs. Cops never move in hostage situations, no matter what species they are. Not for hours and hours. This'll have to make its way all the way up their lousy chain of command to someone who's actually ready to make a damn decision, and then after they negotiate for a couple thousand years, maybe they'll—

Shepard blinks. Vakarian's drawn his weapon. She watches him say something to the cops before he turns towards the grocery, and... smiles.

"Fuck me," she mumbles, as Vakarian charges forward.

Just when she thinks she has her big blue Boy Scout figured out, it turns out the son of a bitch is just plain crazy. He's gonna get himself killed in there. And then what? She gets to languish in his stupid car for even longer while they process the crime scene, take a million holos, verify and transport his body, and finally take her back to the station for a few days' worth of worthless, boring questioning before she gets to start serving her damn time.

Oh no. She will not stand for this.

Shepard lifts her hands and examines her cuffs. Standard issue. Magnetic locks. She's able to shift and twist them, but they're firmly attracted and tight around her wrists. Nothing short of the electronic key Vakarian carried could release these things.

Which left the "sore for a week" option.

A twist and a stifled cry, and her thumb is dislocated. She slips free of one cuff and snaps the digit back into place before she has time to recover, or consider how much it's going to hurt. She spends the next minute or so cursing violently before she starts on her door.

The lock is automatic, controlled only from the pilot's seat up front. No visible mechanism, no handles or panels, no way to open it without tools. The windows are bullet-resistant and shatterproof.

But Shepard is never without an ace of one suit or another. Secreted in the inner sole of one of her thick boots, she pulls out a slim cylindrical device that the Omega underworld had affectionately dubbed a "skullcracker." Pressure activated, the tiny piston at the tip would extend no more than an inch, but at a colossal speed and with tremendous force. It's a one-shot gadget, but used in the right place, one shot is all you ever need.

A single press to the window and cracks spiderweb in every direction, the shatterproof alloy too strong to collapse but now flexible enough for her to kick out.

Less than a minute after Vakarian runs into the building like an idiot, Shepard is climbing out of his car. She straightens and dusts herself off. Her thumb hurts like hell, but other than that, no worse for wear.

She glances around. The car is a ways away from the perimeter up the street. No one is looking in her direction. She can walk away and no one would even notice. Maybe she could get to the docks and find a spot on a nondescript freighter headed for the Terminus systems. If she was very lucky, maybe they hadn't found the time to impound her ship yet.

Half the money is better than none, she'd said. And that was still true. But despite all the logic she'd used to justify giving herself up, the temptation to run is very strong. Shepard is a survivor. Always has been. And part of that is knowing when to cut all your losses and walk away.

Besides, Vakarian's got bigger problems than one wayward bounty hunter. He wouldn't waste time looking for her. She hadn't even killed anyone.

Shepard turns away from the scene, takes two steps, and stops.

Assuming he made it out of there alive, of course.

Shepard digs the heels of her palms into her eyes. With a groan that becomes a growl, she turns and stalks back towards that stupid cop and his hostage situation. She knew her good nature would get her into trouble someday.

She ducks into an alley up the street before the cops can take any notice of her. Strides past the dumpsters and steps over a used stim needle, careful not to make any noise. Then she stops, staring at the ground.

There's always more than one way out of a place, and the cops didn't have any but the front covered. Vakarian had found a side entrance, but she has a better idea.

The Citadel is a massive station, with utility ducts and maintenance corridors big enough to lead a herd of elcor through. Odds are good that there's another way into that store below the surface level. Shepard kicks aside the debris in the alleyway, eyes scanning. She finds what she's looking for half-covered by the big grey dumpster.

Shoving the trash aside is easy. Getting the hatch open will be harder. It isn't locked—it's fused shut, either by Keepers or maintenance crews or simple disuse. She can force it open. Probably.

A few seconds before she's about to give up the cause for lost, the hatch violently gives way. Shepard stumbles backward and nearly falls, but the door is open. A quick clamber down a ladder and she's in a barely-lit maintenance tunnel. A slow, distant thrumming fills the hall. Some pulsing power source or ventilator or air scrubber, keeping a part of the station alive.

Shepard has her bearings, knowing the direction the store is in. She runs, the thud of her boots on metal in time with the noise in the tunnel. She passes a Keeper, crouched in the near-darkness, black eyes fixed on its work, many hands busy. After what feels an appropriate distance, there is a ramp to her right. She heads up, half-scrabbling, almost slipping and sliding down again.

The door at the top is fused shut too. She wants to kick it open, but she remembers the collateral. Shepard sighs. No fun whatsoever when there's collateral.

With a few heaves, the door slides open with the scrape of metal on metal, just enough for her to slip through. She's on a small landing, nothing but stairs to the left leading up. She takes them quietly, and at the top she peeks past the edge of a doorway.

Inside is a mess. She sees at least two dead batarians, one still alive. He's got some asari kid, threatening her with a gun. She can see Vakarian, and what must be the kid's mother behind him.

"No! Please, don't, she's just a baby—"

"Make him drop the gun!"

Vakarian throws his weapon to the ground. Shepard can't decide if that's the smartest or the dumbest thing he's done all day.

"Alright," the batarian says. "Now you're going to help me get out of here!"

Shepard knows a cue when she hears one. She steps through the doorway and walks forward.

The look on Vakarian's face is priceless. If she only had a camera, the holo alone would almost be worth this entire night's trouble. She's not even looking at the batarian when he spins around, she's enjoying it so much.

Shepard brushes some hair out of her eyes, taking her time so Vakarian sees the cuffs dangling from her wrist. Then she gives him her very best smile.

"I can do that."


	6. Hostage Situations for Dummies

Garrus is not easily surprised. Further, when he is surprised, he's fairly unflappable. He's always been a little proud of that. It's something he got from his father, like so many other things.

But here, now, for the first time in his life, Garrus is well and truly flapped.

"Hi there, Blue," the human says, sauntering slowly across the room. "Got a little bored in the cruiser, so I figured I'd come and see what's up."

The batarian is backing up, keeping the hostage between him and whatever is happening. Garrus keeps his eye on them, but he says nothing. He can't find the words anyway.

Once the human is between him and the batarian, she stops and tilts her head. "What's the matter?" she asks, smiling at Garrus. "Cat got your tongue?"

He looks at her like she's crazy. Then she punches him square in the jaw. Garrus stumbles backward a single step. The asari behind him gasps.

"That's for ruining my night," the woman says, shaking the ache out of her hand. "Jackass."

The batarian, meanwhile, is still on edge. "Who the hell are you?!" he shouts.

The woman, for the first time since she entered the room, turns her attention away from Garrus. "Name's Shepard," she says. "I'm your golden ticket."

"What?"

"Look around you, four-eyes. All your friends are dead. More cops'll be here soon. Things just aren't going your way." She turns and walks over to where Garrus dropped his gun. The batarian stiffens, arm tightening around the waist of his shield as Shepard picks up the weapon and checks the heat sink. "I can get you out."

"And why should I trust you?" he asks.

The woman turns and smiles again. "Because I'm no friend of Johnny Law over there. Because I just got picked up down in Chora's Den and I don't want to go to prison. Because I've got a ship in the docks that the cops haven't impounded yet. And mostly because I know a way out that'll take us right under their noses."

The batarian doesn't move, doesn't blink any of his eyes. He briefly glances at Garrus. "Keep talking," he says.

"Citadel's always changing, y'know? Keepers moving walls and floors and patching holes. Lotta disused tunnels around here. Lotta places to run where no cameras or scanners are gonna be able to pick you out until you're long gone." Shepard paces slowly, keeping her new pistol leveled squarely at Garrus's chest. "Ain't that right, Officer Vakarian?"

Garrus says nothing, merely scowls at her. Shepard laughs and approaches him, getting within arm's reach and keeping her gun pointed up at his chin.

"If looks could kill, huh?" she says. "But they can't. This can, though." She wags the pistol slightly. Garrus tenses, balling his hands into fists. "Ah-ah-ah," Shepard chides, still smiling. "Remember the collateral, Vakarian."

He glances over her shoulder. The batarian is still wary, but he's calmer now that he recognizes that the scales have tipped in his favor. The child in his arms is sobbing, dry heaves that leave her gasping in his arms.

"Please," the asari mother pleads, somewhere over Garrus' right shoulder. "Please, just—just let my daughter go, please—"

"Shut up," Shepard says. "Keep your distance and no one hurts your daughter. Ain't that right, Vakarian?"

Garrus holds one hand out, palm back to the asari, gesturing for her to move back. He's still waiting for the opening he needs, but a civilian being so close makes it almost impossible for him to go for the gun.

"How's it feel, big guy?" Shepard hisses, almost a whisper past her wide smile. "Not so funny, now. Stnr."

Garrus blinks. His translator had caught on that last word. It had been too soft, and her lips hadn't moved when she said it.

"Come on," the batarian says impatiently. "You know a way out, let's go before more of them get here."

"Just saying my good-byes," Shepard says loudly. "You'll miss me, won't you, Vakarian? I'd miss me."

Then she smiles and there's that word again, so quiet his translator catches again, but this time he understands it: "Stunner."

There's a short moment where outright confusion replaces the anger on his face, and he hopes the batarian isn't familiar enough with turian expression to see it. But he recovers quickly.

Garrus doesn't trust this human, this Shepard. Not in the slightest. But it's the only play he's got, and they're right next to each other, and now he glances down and sees her hand on her hip, index finger tapping and indicating her pocket.

He glances pointedly at the batarian. Shepard seems to get the message and shifts slightly, hiding her left side from her new compatriot. As quick as he can, Garrus snaps open one of the pockets on his armor and retrieves the stunner, then throws a right hook at her chin.

He'd been trying to telegraph the blow, and it works. Shepard catches the arm and brings it down against her side, where Garrus slips the stunner into her pocket.

She winks, then. Garrus wishes he knew what that meant.

Then she cracks him with the butt of his own pistol. Garrus falls, dazed, onto one knee as Shepard backs away from him.

"Nice try, cuttlebone," she shouts mockingly, expression both amused and angry she sights him down the barrel of his pistol. "Really aren't too bright, are you? I'd shoot if I didn't feel like wasting the sliver of metal it'd take to end you."

Shepard spits on the floor between them. Then she turns and walks away. "Come on, four-eyes. Let's blow."

The batarian is hesitant to turn his back, but he does, after a few steps, jogging after Shepard as she leads him towards the back aisle of the grocery. The asari tries to chase after them, but Garrus grabs her hand. Blue biotics start to blaze up and down her skin, and he squeezes her wrist.

"Don't," he says. "You'll just get yourself killed."

"I don't care!" she cries, trying to wrench free. "They've got my daughter!"

"No they don't."

All at once, the blue glow vanishes. She looks at him with wide eyes. "What?"

Garrus sighs. He still doesn't trust Shepard. He still isn't sure. But...

"Give it a minute."

/////

Shepard leads the batarian and his hostage, still sobbing, back down the stairs and to the half-open door she'd come in. She slaps Vakarian's pistol to her hip and it attaches to the armored hold beneath the fabric of her pants.

"You wanna give me the kid?" she asks.

The batarian looks at her suspiciously. "What?"

"Don't think she likes batarians." Shepard shrugs. "Probably the teeth."

He hesitates. The gun in his hand starts to rise, not towards her, but to the child. Shepard rolls her eyes.

"We still need a hostage," she explains seriously. "And the kid's gonna cry all the way to the dock, so unless you want to give away our position and get a ton of alien snot all over yourself, I can probably keep her quiet better than you can."

The batarian considers this. His top two eyes blink, and then his bottom ones. Finally, he nods, and with the difficulty of someone who has never handled a child before, passes the asari girl to Shepard.

"It's okay, it's okay," she whispers to the girl as she struggles and sobs in Shepard's arms. "You'll be back with your mother soon as we're gone."

"You kidding?" the batarian grumbles as he tries to squeeze through the door. "That kid's the only thing that's keeping us alive. And the only way I'll see any kind of profit from this fiasco."

Failing to sidle through as Shepard had, he sets his shoulder against the door jam and pushes, sliding it open further.

"Well," she drawls, "I wouldn't say it was the only thing keeping you alive."

The batarian chuckles dryly. "Yeah. Thanks for that."

"No problem. Hey, four-eyes?"

He turns his head. The stunner goes straight into one of his eyes and she holds the trigger down as he spasms and seizes. After a good three seconds, she releases the trigger and he crumples against the doorjam.

"I don't like batarians either," Shepard says.

The batarian gurgles and drools in response.

Shepard turns her attention to the little girl in her arms. She's not crying anymore. Just looking at her with wide, shocked eyes.

Shepard smiles and bounces her a little in her arms. "C'mon. Let's go find your mom."


	7. Just Another Aftermath

Not two minutes go by before Shepard comes walking back with a child held easily in her arms. Garrus exhales a breath he's been holding as the asari pulls away from his grasp.

"Mommy!" the girl cries, and Shepard sets her down. She runs to meet her mother, and they embrace with tears in their eyes.

Shepard keeps her distance, and somehow Garrus knows it's for them. When the mother finally turns her attention from her child, she looks at Shepard.

"Thank you," she says. Then she turns to Garrus. "Thank you both so much."

The human smiles and says nothing. Garrus comments that they should get outside, that the police will need to take their statements. Shepard skirts around them as they head out through the back. She casts a critical eye over the scene, picking her way through the wreckage of the firefight like a curator at an art museum.

"'Cuttlebone?' " Garrus asks.

"Had to play it right," she says. "You haven't gotten that one before?"

"No. How's your friend?" Garrus asks.

"Drooling in a heap downstairs," she replies. "How's your head?"

Garrus scoffs. "Please."

"Don't worry. I pulled my punches."

"Sure you did."

Shepard gives him a skeptical look. Garrus can hear sirens approaching fast. Tactical finally getting off their asses just in time to pose for pictures.

An odd sort of silence hangs between them. Garrus isn't sure what to make of it. Or of her, come to that. Whatever preconceptions he had about her had vanished when she rounded that aisle with a child in her arms. He had taken a leap of faith, let her go in the hope that she wasn't as bad as she presented herself to be. And his faith had been rewarded.

What did that leave?

"So," Shepard says, with a shrug and a searching look. "What now?"

Garrus' brow plates rise. "You're asking me?"

She crosses her arms. "It's your show," she says seriously.

He looks her up and down like he's seeing her for the first time. It seems like he is.

"You didn't have to help that girl," he notes.

"No, I didn't."

"You didn't have to take down that batarian."

"Nope."

"You didn't have to come back."

"Nuh-uh."

"Yet here you are."

Shepard raises her head, proudly, defiantly. She looks him dead in the eye. "Here I am."

Garrus' mandibles flex in and out. He hears the sirens land outside. Not much time left to make a decision, if there's a decision to be made at all.

In the end, he decides there isn't.

Garrus steps forward and extends his hand. He smiles, but only slightly. Shepard looks down, takes her time considering the offer, and, eventually, accepts.

She has a firm grip, he finds. Strong, but not unyielding. Her hands are larger than they look, and they fit in his without any difficulty.

The cuff fits around her wrist just as easily.

"Wow, really?" she says, not sounding surprised. "Really?"

Garrus reaches to take and cuff her other hand. In front of her, this time. Not behind the back. Shepard doesn't resist in the least.

"Uh-huh."

"Whatever happened to gratitude?" she asks as he pulls his pistol from her hip and replaces it on his own.

He directs her towards the door. "You asked that already."

"And I didn't get an answer." She holds up her wrists and examines her new cuffs, in particular the metal chain connecting them. "These aren't even mag-locks. Where did you get these?"

"You never want to be left without a spare," he says blithely, keying the C-Sec security override on the front door panel. "And you never want to be too dependent on technology."

Shepard rolls her eyes so hard they're nearly white. "Jesus, Vakarian. You really are a Boy Scout."

"Since I don't know what that means, I'll take it as a compliment."

The doors open and the security cage begins to rise. The two officers and their patrol car have been joined by two more cars and two transport shuttles. Tactical is there in all their glory, fully armed and armored and lined up behind freshly deployed barriers.

Everyone raises their weapons. Garrus is prepared—he already has his badge in his hand, and he holds it up as they walk out together.

"Garrus Vakarian, badge number seven niner three seven two one four eight," he shouts. "Situation is resolved."

He feels Shepard's shoulders shift beneath the hand he has on her back. Garrus glances her way and finds her scanning the situation. Not afraid, exactly, but fully aware of exactly how many weapons are pointed in her direction.

A thought occurs to him as tactical sprints past to secure the building. He doesn't have much time to dwell on it before the executor starts demanding explanations.

She wanted to run. She wanted to run, and she didn't.

"—your problem, Vakarian?"

The Executor, a short turian whose name he doesn't know but whose golden yellow tattoos mark as someone from Rocam, isn't shouting but he's close to it. "You were supposed to wait for backup!"

"Hostages were in danger, perps were desperate." Garrus shrugs and moves past his superior, guiding Shepard along with him through the labyrinth of parked transports. Red and blue emergency lights flash in a steady rhythm. "I made a judgment call."

"A judgment call?" the Executor balks. "You don't get to make judgment calls, Vakarian. Or have you forgotten what your rank is?"

"The hostages okay?" Garrus asks, scanning around for a medical transport and finding one parked up the street, near his skycar. He'd say this much for tactical, they could certainly widen a cordon in a hurry. He saw most of the hostages crowded around the transport, receiving attention for minor cuts and bruises.

"Wh—they're fine. All alive and accounted for." The Executor stumbles a bit. "Stop changing the subject."

"I'm afraid I don't know what the subject is, sir," Garrus says dryly. "I didn't disobey any orders."

"You didn't wait for any! That's the issue!"

Garrus opens the front passenger door. It's a moment or two before Shepard figures out he wants her to get inside. She gives him a look that's surprise and a little suspicion and... something else that he can't quite place, but which he's certain his partner would understand.

"Wait, where are you going?" the Executor asks. "Who is this?"

"This is a prisoner," Garrus says. "Picked up in Chora's Den earlier tonight and being taken in for processing."

The Executor blinks and sputters. "Then what were they doing inside?!"

"I think two of the hostages inside could give better statements than I could. Sir," he adds, almost as an afterthought.

Shepard gets inside, smiling now, and Garrus shuts the door for her.

"Wait just a second here, Vakarian," the Executor demands, following him as he walks around the hood. "You aren't getting away with this—"

"With what?" he asks sternly, rounding on the man and bringing him up short. "Doing my job? You're not from my precinct. You're not part of my chain of command. If you have a problem with my conduct, lodge a formal complaint or take it to Pallin. But don't threaten me out here like you have the power to reprimand me just so you can look impressive to your subordinates."

The Executor says nothing for a moment. Simply stares knives into Garrus' eyes. Then, he says, "Pallin will hear of this."

"Of course he will," Garrus mumbles.

Before the Executor can shout anything about how he heard that, a tiny blue child slams into Garrus' leg and wraps her arms around it. "Thank you for saving us, mister police!" she shouts, before looking up and adding, "Mommy says thanks, too."

Garrus looks towards the ambulance and sees the asari, hugging her elbows and beaming at him. Not knowing what else to do, he awkwardly pats the child on the head before she removes herself and runs back to her mother.

In the silence that follows in her wake, he takes his opportunity to dismiss himself. "I'll give my statement in the morning. Directly to my superiors." He salutes and says, "Good luck with the clean-up, sir."

The Executor, half-heartedly and with great reluctance, returns his salute. He says nothing more as Garrus opens the door and climbs into the car, and as he begins the ascent into traffic, he sees Shepard making an obscene gesture down at the ground.

It really is shocking just how quickly your opinion of someone can change.


	8. Processing

They're in the air for a while before either of them says anything. Shepard occupies herself by finding the controls for her seat and reclining it as far as it can go, which isn't far. Still, she's vastly more comfortable than she was in the back. She puts her hands behind her head, closes her eyes, and sighs.

Once the car enters traffic proper, Shepard asks, "So where to now? Another hostage situation? Serial killer? Terrorist bank robbers attacking an asari corporate starscraper?"

Garrus reaches over and turns off his radio. Shepard smirks. Eventually, he notices.

"What?" he says. "It's late. I'm tired. I got shot. I want to go home and sleep."

"You sleep, Boy Scout?" Shepard says dryly. "Figured you just sat in a chair and waited for shift change."

Garrus laughs. A short, barking laugh, but a laugh nonetheless. Shepard takes this as an invitation.

"You got shot?"

Garrus nods. "Right thigh, upper back. Body armor stopped both slugs."

"Nice."

"Not really. Hurts like hell."

"You say that like I don't know that."

He glances at her. Shepard smiles again, but she puts a little less edge into it this time. He won't believe her otherwise.

"Brave thing you did back there," she says.

Nothing in his face changes, but the way he turns back to the controls and shrugs off the compliment says he knows it's genuine. "Most people would call it stupid."

"Oh, it was stupid," Shepard agrees. "Crazy, even. Downright idiotic and insane."

Now he smiles. "Thanks."

"But you knew what you could do. You knew what you were capable of."

Shepard turns and looks out of the cockpit. All this honesty is thoroughly unlike her. She consoles herself with the idea that all she's doing is voicing a fact.

"When you know yourself like that, you can tell the difference between a stupid risk, and just another day on the job. Even if it doesn't look like it to anyone else."

A silence hangs in the car. Shepard can't tell if it's a comfortable one or not, but doesn't much care. She watches transports speeding past the window, freighters big and small jockeying for position at the docking bays, warships going out on patrol or stopping for shore leave.

The little voice in the back of her mind wonders if she can still make it back to her ship before they impound it. Wonders how fast this skycar could go. Wonders how far her hands are from Vakarian's gun.

"So what's your real name?"

Shepard spins her head a little too fast and has to work to control her expression. "What?"

"Your real name." The smug bastard is smiling again. "Don't tell me it's Shepard."

"So what if it is?"

"Then you're not a very good criminal if you don't have an alias."

She scoffs. "Oh, I've got aliases."

"Do you?"

"Sure." She takes her hands from behind her head and begins to count off her fingers. "Captain, Chief, Commander, Major—"

"Military ranks? Isn't that a bit obvious?"

"It's not about staying hidden. It's about building a brand," she explains. "Thieves and assassins keep low profiles. Bounty hunters? We're all flash."

"That explains a lot."

Shepard strongly considers hitting him, but he's still piloting the car. She sighs and settles further into her seat. "Cops."

"Thought I'd earned a bit more than that."

"Really? At what point? When you cuffed me the first time, or the second time?"

"You're up front now, aren't you?"

"Oh, yeah, the front seat of a C-Sec skycar. Exactly where I've always wanted to be. How did you know?"

"Whatever happened to gratitude," he echoes, and this time she really does hit him, in the shoulder, with both hands. He laughs, and she laughs too.

"Yeah, well, if you think you're getting any out of me for throwing me in the clink, you really are an idiot," Shepard says, slipping her hands back behind her head again. "I don't care how cute you are."

She's watching his face when she says it, expecting a stronger reaction than she gets. Garrus blinks several times in rapid succession. He pauses a moment before he speaks, clearly choosing his next words carefully.

"I am not cute."

Oh. Well then.

Shepard smiles, big and wide. It's the most honest one she's shown anyone all night. Garrus responds by giving her a look of stone-faced disappointment.

"Actually," she says, "maybe I do care how cute you are."

He rolls his eyes. "Oh, please."

"What? I've been around. You think I've been from the Perseus Veil to the seat of galactic civilization without developing some cosmopolitan tastes? Or am I making you"—she leans in and whispers the next word—"uncomfortable?"

Garrus doesn't rise to her bait. He doesn't even react to her proximity. "I've got no views whatsoever on dating outside one's species," he says, matter-of-fact.

Shepard sneers and settles back into her seat. She's a little disappointed he's not going to play along, but that's fine. "Have you ever?" she asks.

He shrugs. "Thought it was gross when I was twelve."

"I meant dated outside your species."

"No, but I know people who have."

"Oh, so, 'some of my best friends are deviants,' is what you're saying?"

"How did we even arrive at this subject?"

"I called you cute."

"Oh, yeah," he deadpans. "I remember now."

Shepard puts her feet up on the dash. Garrus glares at her boots, but says nothing. She smiles, and smiles harder when he does too.

The guidance system pings twice as they approach the C-Sec precinct near the base of Shalta Ward. Garrus gently glides the car out of traffic and down towards a private docking bay, slowing briefly so the scanners can check and recheck his ID tags. The doors ahead open, and he guides the car into one of the garages C-Sec uses to store police transports and impounded vehicles.

While Garrus looks for a spot to land, Shepard is looking out the window. The little voice in her head says her ship might already be impounded, might already be in this very garage. The rest of her knows that even if it is, they'll have ripped out the guidance system, and she'd have to fly it out manually.

You can do that, the voice says. You've done it before.

Yeah, and I didn't have a way to plot a lightspeed course then, either, she tells herself. Flying blind through the Serpent Nebula is an awesome way to get myself killed, if the Citadel's defense cannons don't get me first.

But she still keeps looking.

The skycar settles onto dark concrete, and Garrus shuts it down. He hesitates for a fraction of a second, hands on the controls, staring out the front of the cockpit, but then he opens his door and steps out. Shepard opens her own door and gets out on her own, and he politely shuts it behind her.

Garrus keeps one hand on her back as he leads her toward the elevators. Shepard doesn't shift, doesn't waver. She walks where he guides her and says nothing. She's not smiling anymore, but she's not complaining either.

The little voice keeps telling her there's still a way out, there's always a way out, as long as you're willing to fight for it. Shepard has to will it to shut up. This is the best move, the smartest move, and she is going to make it.

The elevator ride seems to take even longer than it did last time she was on the Citadel. And when the elevator leaves the shaft and presents them with a full view of Shalta Ward as they rise to C-Sec's incarceration level, her breath catches in her throat.

Shepard has always hated cages, and she always will. She's had more than enough of them in her life, of one kind or another. She once swore she'd rather die than be caged again. But then she had to go and live long enough to realize that she hated her fear even more than the cage. She'd given up swearing vows by then, but she knew that she couldn't let her fear define her anymore.

Run, it says. Run and get away, get out, get free.

Shepard forces stale, recycled air into and out of her lungs, and savors the view of the stars.

Nah. Better luck next time.

The view disappears as the elevator re-enters a shaft. Shepard feels a pang of something in her chest, and ignores it.

The cold grey wall blurs past the glass until the elevator stops and the doors open behind them. Garrus guides her out. It's a short walk down a busy hallway to a desk, with a single turian behind it, and a sign emblazoned across the front that says "PROCESSING" in ten different alien languages.

They wait for their turn. Shepard shifts on her feet as numerous C-Sec officers drag prisoners this way and that, while still others sit and wait in chairs along either side. Nearly every species is represented, some looking morose and sorrowful, while others are not-so-quietly furious. A volus is kicked along past the desk by a human officer, while an elcor is herded through the crowd by three turians with hands on their weapons.

The line ahead clears, and Garrus pushes Shepard forward. The turian desk clerk doesn't look up from his work, fingers flying across one terminal screen, then another. He looks busy and put-upon and tired of everyone's crap. Shepard can relate.

"Name," he asks curtly.

"Shepard," she says.

"Full name."

"Commander Shepard."

Garrus coughs. The clerk looks up and glares at her, then over her shoulder. "Picked up another one, did you, Garrus?"

He nods. The clerk clicks his tongue loudly as he returns to his work. "Going to break a precinct record if you keep this up. This one going to be trouble?"

"No," he says with certainty. "She won't."

"What're the charges?"

"Possession of illegal weapon modifications, possession of unlicensed firearms, bounty hunting without a license."

The clerk types it all in. When it becomes clear that's all Garrus is going to say, Shepard turns and gives him a look of honest surprise.

"That's all?" the clerks asks, stealing the words from her mouth.

"She was also a witness to a hostage situation in district B13 earlier tonight," Garrus says. "The primary on that will want to take her statement."

"Non-violent offenders down the hall to the right," the clerk says simply. "You know where the interrogation rooms are."

Garrus nods, and starts her down the hall behind the desk and to the right. The crowd tapers off almost immediately, and after they take a couple turns and pass a pair of investigators heading back out, they're alone in a pristine and unmarked corridor.

"What are you doing?" Shepard asks.

"My job," Garrus replies.

She almost doesn't believe him, like this is another smart-ass joke of his. One last laugh at her expense. She weighs her options, and decides she has to ask.

"Whatever happened to 'assault' and 'manslaughter' and 'reckless endangerment'?"

"Fist went for a gun. You were defending yourself. And as for reckless endangerment, I'm not sure I'm in a position to make that call."

Shepard glances over her shoulder. "Because you were reckless, or I wasn't?"

Garrus shrugs. "You tell me."

He stops her outside one of the interrogation rooms. There are chairs outside, probably for detectives or witnesses waiting for a line-up. He motions for her to take a seat, and she does.

"An investigator should be up shortly to take your statement," Garrus says. "Then, depending on how you plead and how quickly your arraignment goes through, you'll get between six and nine months. Three, if you behave yourself."

"My ship will still be impounded," Shepard says.

"And it'll cost a fair bit to get it back," he says with a nod. "But as I understand it, you've got some money in the bank. And if you need any more, you can always pick up a few bounties. As long as you get a license this time."

Shepard nods slowly. She's starting to get the picture. "And how do I get one of those?"

"By filling out a lot of boring forms, taking the interminable departmentally-mandated training and discipline courses, and making sure to be in constant contact with your sponsor."

A grin splits her face that she just can't help. "Is my sponsor cute?"

Garrus smiles. Then he starts walking back down the hall.

"You're just leaving me here?" she asks.

"I think you'll stay put," he says.

She slumps low in her seat and watches him go. Garrus doesn't look back once.

Shepard is looking at a minimum of three months of incarceration, three months spent in the thing she hates and fears most, and she just can't stop smiling.

Or checking out her arresting officer's ass.

Reluctantly, she tears herself away from the view and props her head back. Legs crossed and hands behind her head, she considers the night's events and comes to the conclusion that two things are true: things could be a lot worse, and, for once, the galaxy had let a good deed go unpunished.

"Garrus Vakarian," she says quietly, testing the name on her tongue. She almost laughs at how dramatic it sounds, but finds that she likes it.

Oh yeah. Shepard knows exactly where she's going to be in three months time.


End file.
